All tours, cruises, holidays and hotel breaks booked with the Specialist Leisure Group have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled.

The Specialist Leisure Group operated several businesses that sold holidays and other travel arrangements under the following brand names, which have all ceased to trade, due to the impact of COVID-19.

All hotels trading as Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels and Country Living Hotels will not reopen. Click here for a full list of hotels that have ceased to trade.

All Wallace Arnold Travel shops are now permanently closed. If you booked a holiday through a travel agent that was not Wallace Arnold Travel, please contact your travel agent in the first instance.

Customers who have booked with one of the above brands should read and follow the advice below.

Package holiday bookings

All package holiday bookings, including organised tours and cruises, have been cancelled and will not be rescheduled.

All customers with cancelled package holiday bookings, which include organised travel, are expected to have financial protection. Customers with Holiday Credit Notes, issued for package holidays cancelled since March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, may have the same financial protection as under their original booking.

It is important that customers read and follow the advice below to confirm if and how they can claim a refund for their cancelled holiday.

Travel by Coach, Rail and River Cruises

If your package holiday / tour included travel by coach or rail, or you booked a cruise, with overnight accommodation, your holiday is expected to be covered by The Confederation of Passenger Transport, Bonded Coach Holidays Scheme or by your credit / debit card issuer. Holiday Credit Notes, issued for holidays cancelled due to COVID-19, will have the same financial protection under the Bonded Coach Holidays Scheme as the original booking.

Customers with ATOL protected bookings will be contacted by the UK Civil Aviation Authority in due course, either directly or via their booking / travel agent, with further information and advice on making a claim for a refund.

Holidays booked through Travel Agents

Specialist Leisure Group bookings through Wallace Arnold Travel

All Wallace Arnold Travel shops are now permanently closed.

If you purchased a Shearings, National Holidays or UK Breakaways holiday through Wallace Arnold Travel, please refer to the information on this page to confirm your options to claim a refund for your cancelled holiday.

Other Wallace Arnold Travel bookings

Only holidays operated by tour operators in the Specialist Leisure Group have been cancelled, as a result of the Administration.

If you booked your holiday through Wallace Arnold Travel, for a trip arranged by a tour operator not in the Specialist Leisure Group, your holiday booking should be unaffected.

Tour operators that are not part of the Specialist Leisure Group include, but are not limited to, Jet2 Holidays, Tui, P&O Cruises and Butlins. To confirm the tour operator you have booked with, check your paperwork or ATOL Certificate for a flight inclusive package.

If your holiday is with a different tour operator (not the Specialist Leisure Group) please contact them directly regarding your booking.

Bookings through other travel agents

If you booked a holiday through a travel agent that was not Wallace Arnold Travel, please contact your travel agent in the first instance.

Visit www.abta.com/slg for further information and advice if you booked your holiday through Wallace Arnold Travel.

All other bookings

If you do not have financial protection for your booking, other options to claim may be available to you. The options available to you will depend on your method of payment and insurance cover as outlined below.

Bookings and vouchers without financial protection may include:

Self-drive holidays;

Hotel reservations with Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels and Country Living Hotels (click here for a full list of these hotels);

Events booked at Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels and Country Living Hotels;

Activity only bookings, without organised coach travel;

Some Holiday Credit Notes, e.g. those issued for self-drive holidays and hotel breaks cancelled since March 2020; and

Gift Vouchers.

Customers with Holiday Credit Notes, issued for package holidays cancelled since March 2020, may have the same financial protection as under their original booking. Please follow the guidance for “Package holiday bookings” in the first instance.

Credit Card

If you paid any part of your booking or voucher on credit card, please contact your card issuer to confirm if you are eligible to claim a refund. If your booking was ATOL protected, you will be able to claim for a refund through ATOL. The UK Civil Aviation Authority is contacting consumers directly or through their travel agent with further information.

The contact number for your card issuer is likely to be located on the reverse of your card (otherwise it can be found online).

Please note that the card issuer is the bank which issued the card to you, not the payment processor. For example, if you have a HSBC MasterCard, the card issuer is HSBC (not MasterCard).

Debit Card

If you paid any part of your booking on debit card, please contact your card issuer to understand if you have any financial protection under the chargeback scheme.

Travel Insurance

Depending on your policy, you may be able to claim on your travel insurance.

Travel insurance policies bought through the Specialist Leisure Group exclude cover for insolvency (as per Section 1 (3c) of the policy). Customers with travel insurance purchased through the Specialist Leisure Group should contact their credit or debit card issuer, if applicable (see above), or make a claim in the Administration, as per the instructions below.

Claim in the Administration

If you are not eligible for a refund in any of the ways mentioned above, you may be entitled to submit a claim in the Administration of the Specialist Leisure Group, as an unsecured creditor.

You should only make a claim as an unsecured creditor if you have exhausted all other options. At this early stage, it is not known if any money will be available to meet such claims and this will not be known until later in 2020 / 2021. As such, it is possible that any refund received will be minimal or potentially nil.

If you are unable to claim a refund under the options outlined above, you can register your unsecured creditor claim by emailing SLGAdministration@uk.ey.com or writing to the Joint Administrators at the following address: c/o S J Woodward and C P Dempster, Ernst & Young LLP, 2 St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 3EY, United Kingdom.

To register your unsecured creditor claim, please include in your email / letter the following information:

Your name and address;

Total claim amount, i.e. the amount paid for your holiday;

Details of your booking, including booking reference number, destination, dates, number of travellers; and

Evidence of purchase, i.e. your booking confirmation.

The letter / email must be signed by the claimant, this can be a typed name at the bottom of an email or a signature on a letter.

Additional customer information

If you are a customer and have a query that is not answered above, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions (‘FAQs’) on the Administrators website at https://www.ey.com/en_uk/ey-slg-administration which will be updated regularly.

If your question is not answered in the information above or the Administrators’ FAQs you can contact the Administrators at:

ShearingsGroup@uk.ey.com if your booking was with Shearings Holidays, Wallace Arnold Travel, Bay Hotels, Coast & Country Hotels or Country Living Hotels; or

Creditors and suppliers

The Administrators will be contacting all known creditors of the Specialist Leisure Group in due course.

If you were a supplier to the Specialist Leisure Group, and you require further details in relation to the Administration, please direct your enquiries to the Administrators’ office by email at SLGAdministration@uk.ey.com

S J Woodward is licensed in the United Kingdom to act as an Insolvency Practitioner by The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and C P Dempster is licensed in the United Kingdom to act as Insolvency Practitioner by The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland.

The affairs, business and property of the Companies are being managed by the Joint Administrators, S J Woodward and C P Dempster, who act as agents of the Companies only and without personal liability.

The Joint Administrators may act as data controllers of personal data as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, depending upon the specific processing activities undertaken. Ernst & Young LLP and/or the Companies may act as a data processor on the instructions of the Joint Administrators. Personal data will be kept secure and processed only for matters relating to the Joint Administrators’ appointment. The Office Holder Data Privacy Notice can be found at www.ey.com/uk/officeholderprivacy.